Capital A revealed in a Bursa Malaysia stock market filing on July 5 that it had signed an ACMI contract on July 1 on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary AirAsia (AK, Kuala Lumpur International) to wet-lease one A330-300 from AirAsia X (D7, Kuala Lumpur International) for four months.
The company said that under the agreement, effective until October 31, it would pay a total estimated consideration of MYR16,910,459 ringgit (USD3.82 million), exclusive of 6% sales and service tax, for the leasing of the aircraft. However, this sum “comprises actual flown and planned wet-lease of the aircraft on an hourly billing basis for the period of the agreement. The final total payment will vary based on hours eventually flown.”
On the rationale behind the transaction, Capital A explained that AirAsia “plans to increase seat capacity across all markets to meet growing post-Covid recovery in passenger demand” and that “the wet-lease of available aircraft from AAX will allow AirAsia to rapidly ramp up seat capacity on trunk routes as well as serve as spare capacity to be deployed during this post-Covid recovery period.”
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, it is A330-300 9M-XXZ (msn 1612) that AirAsia has wet-leased from its low-cost long-haul unit. Analysis of AirNav Radarbox data shows that its last flight was on June 16, when it was flown from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur International, where it remains for now.
AirAsia currently operates one widebody, 9M-VVA (msn 1596), which was also originally delivered to AirAsia X but has been in the AirAsia fleet since December 2021. Besides this, the budget carrier operates sixty-nine A320-200s, twenty-nine A320-200Ns, and two A321-200NX. AirAsia X, for its part, operates twelve A330-300s and no narrowbody aircraft - half its fleet size from pre-Covid times, though it recently resumed flight operations.
It is not the first time AirAsia has wet-leased a widebody from its long-haul subsidiary - it did so in the pre-Covid era, during the period May 31 to June 16, 2019, for example.
